Telegraph View: The chief lesson of the Olympics is that success does
not come without hard work, and lots of it.

After winning his second gold medal of theLondon Olympics on Saturday, Mo Farah was asked if he could explain the secret of his success. “It’s all hard work and grafting,” he replied. That, surely, has been the most compelling aspect of the past two momentous weeks in the history of London and of the United Kingdom: the dedication and extraordinary application of the participants. Not just of the medal winners, either. To compete at this level requires years of “hard work and grafting” whether or not the athlete has a particularly good chance of standing on the winners’ podium. It is not for nothing that the Olympic creed, the principles that underpin the Games, states: “The most important thing… is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well.”

That may seem like scant consolation for the competitors who trained as hard as those who triumphed only to come fourth in a race or to endure defeat early in the knock-out stages of an event. But for all that the Olympics extol the virtues of taking part above winning, this is not an “all must have prizes” philosophy. There is no reward for indolence or complacency, no kudos for those who do not try to do their best. Above all, a premium is placed on optimism and hope, even in the most adverse circumstances. Many of the athletes celebrating together at last night’s closing ceremony party come from countries with little in the way of sporting facilities; yet, as with the Ugandan winner of the men’s marathon yesterday, Stephen Kiprotich, through grit, determination and sacrifice they made it through to London for an experience they will never forget. They serve as a reproof to the overpaid and over-hyped Premiership footballers who next weekend start their new season. Let us hope some of the sportsmanship of the last two weeks rubs off on them.

As Jacques Rogge, the president of the International Olympic Committee, said yesterday, London delivered what it promised, and more besides. It is impossible to praise Sebastian Coe and his team too highly. When the Games were awarded to London in July 2005, and the atmosphere was darkened almost immediately by the terrorist attack the following day, many doubted whether the country was up to staging them. After the success of the Beijing Olympics and the crash of the financial markets, those concerns deepened.

But, as Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, writes on the opposite page, the sceptics have been confounded. Not only were the Games brilliantly organised and proved to be a wonderful advertisement for the glories of this country and its capital city, the enthusiasm of the British public has been magnificent. Hundreds of thousands lined the route of the men’s marathon yesterday as it took the runners past London’s most famous landmarks, reinforcing its claim to be the world’s greatest city. The congestion failed to materialise; even the weather in this benighted summer has not been that bad.

To be sure, the public’s response has had much to do with the unprecedented success of the British team. There was a time when gold medallists from these shores were a rarity; to have won so many in London, coming third in the medals table, and to have done so in such a variety of sports, has been a revelation. Just as the country can take pride in the performance of its athletes, it can draw great encouragement from the staging itself. The Olympic Park, which emerged phoenix-like from the contaminated wasteland of a run-down corner of east London, has become one of the capital’s iconic features almost overnight. It will, of course, also stage the Paralympics when they begin later this month and which promise to be the most successful ever. But the organisers should consider holding a series of open days to enable those who did not have tickets for events in the Olympic Park to visit the venues.

Participation in the Olympics has been important not just for the athletes and the army of splendid volunteers, but also for the British people. Yes, there will be a lasting legacy for London in the physical transformation of the East End, and this newspaper’s Keep the Flame Alive campaign seeks to ensure the momentum that propelled the British team to success in London is not lost. But wider lessons can be drawn from London 2012. Ever since Danny Boyle lifted national spirits with the audacious casting of the Queen in the opening ceremony, the country has ridden a wave of euphoria. Yet we should not delude ourselves: the economic clouds only parted to provide a brief glimpse of the sun. For David Cameron, difficult decisions must be made in the autumn when the Olympics are just a memory.

The Coalition is preparing an economic regeneration Bill and is anxious to proceed with new infrastructure projects. But it also needs to wage a more aggressive war on wasteful public spending and to cut taxes if the economy is to be rebalanced in favour of the wealth-creating sector. With luck, the Government will be able to tap into a residual feel-good factor from what the Prime Minister dubbed the Friendly Games. Above all, though, what we must harness on a national scale are the twin components of Mo Farah’s success: hard work and grafting.